1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multilayer ceramic electronic component and a board for mounting the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In accordance with the recent trend for miniaturization of electronic products, a multilayer ceramic electronic component used in electronic products has been required to be reduced in size and to have a high level of capacitance implemented therein.
Therefore, efforts to stack thin dielectric layers and internal electrodes in greater amounts have been attempted using various methods, and recently, a multilayer ceramic electronic component in which a thickness of the dielectric layer is reduced and the number of stacked dielectric layers is increased has been manufactured.
Accordingly, the multilayer ceramic electronic component is able to be miniaturized, due to the dielectric layers and the internal electrodes being thinned, allowing the number of stacked layers to be increased for the implementation of a high level of capacitance.
However, in the case in which the number of stacked layers is increased while the thicknesses of the dielectric layers and the internal electrodes are reduced as described above, the multilayer ceramic electronic component may achieve high capacitance, but a thickness of the resultant multilayer ceramic electronic component may be greater than a width thereof, due to an increase in the number of stacked layers.
In the case in which the thickness of the multilayer ceramic electronic component is greater than the width thereof as described above, since external electrodes formed on both end surfaces of the multilayer ceramic electronic component generally have a rounded circumferential surface.
Therefore, when the multilayer ceramic electronic component is mounted on a printed circuit board, or the like, the multilayer ceramic electronic component may not be maintained in a mounted state, but may topple over frequently, whereby a failure rate in mounting the multilayer ceramic electronic component has increased.
In addition, when the thicknesses of the dielectric layers and the internal electrodes are reduced, step portions may be generated due to the increased number of stacked layers, and thus, the reliability of the multilayer ceramic electronic component may be degraded. Particularly, short-circuits may frequently occur near a cover layer receiving a large amount of stress at the time of compressing a ceramic body, and thus, the reliability may be significantly degraded.
Patent Document 1 discloses a multilayer ceramic condenser reduced in size and having a high level of capacitance implemented therein. However, Patent Document 1 does not disclose solutions to the problem that the multilayer ceramic condenser may topple over when mounted on a printed circuit board.